The Thoughts of a Conservative mind.

Just thought I would give you all a heads up that I am heading home for some much needed R&R (and to vote!!!). WIth travel time and my two weeks vacation I wont be back till right around the 21st of November (I am sure some of you are not heartbroken over it).

This morning at the mess hall here in Iraq, I was watching the Armed Forces Network(AFN) when a Public Service Announcement came on (they don’t have paid advertising so this is what we get instead) that was reminding Military members that the APO/FPO (Military Post Offices) have delivery confirmation at that it is recommended to use that on your absentee ballot so that you know your ballot was received by your state.

Barack Obama laughs off charges of socialism. Joe Biden scoffs at references to Marxism. Both men shrug off accusations of liberalism.

But Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.

Obama’s affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully,” the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” “The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”

Obama’s interest in leftist politics continued after he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He lived on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for what he called “the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union.”

If that isn’t bad enough here is some more:

“In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia,” Obama wrote in “Dreams,” which he published in 1995. “At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature.”

Obama supporters point out that plenty of Americans flirt with radical ideologies in college, only to join the political mainstream later in life. But Obama, who made a point of noting how “carefully” he chose his friends in college, also chose to launch his political career in the Chicago living room of Ayers, a domestic terrorist who in 2002 proclaimed: “I am a Marxist.”

Also present at that meeting was Ayers’ wife, fellow terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, who once gave a speech extolling socialism, communism and “Marxism-Leninism.”

Obama has been widely criticized for choosing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an anti-American firebrand, as his pastor. Wright is a purveyor of black liberation theology, which analysts say is based in part on Marxist ideas.

You add all this up, Obama’s own words in his book, his associations that he admits he “careful chose” ,the tape from 2001 and Obama’s comment to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth” and you have a pretty strong case that Obama has beliefs as a Marxist/Socialist. Is this who we really want as our next President?

In other words, I am going to read what you write and watch what you say. Hopefully you will be fair and impartial as you told me you would be.

Thomas L. Rosenberg
Roetzel & Andress, LPA

Columbus, OH 43215

You got to love the veiled threat in the letter, but then again that has become the Obama campaigns tactic in response to their critics (as you can see here and here). And let us not forget what happens when an interviewer asks the campaign a tough question (as you can see here and here h/t Michelle Malkin).

It makes me wonder if this is the kind of thing that will be prevalent in an Obama Administration?

It’s for the good of the country and for those who’re bitter for a reason and armed because they’re scared.

Jonathan Valania

is editor in chief of the blog Phawker.com

As a lifelong Caucasian, I am beginning to think the time has finally come to take the right to vote away from white people, at least until we come to our senses. Seriously, I just don’t think we can be trusted to exercise it responsibly anymore.

I give you Exhibit A: The last eight years.

In 2000, Bush-Cheney stole the election, got us attacked, and then got us into two no-exit wars. Four years later, white people reelected them. Is not the repetition of the same behavior over and over again with the expectation of a different outcome the very definition of insanity? (It is, I looked it up.)

Exhibit B is any given Sarah Palin rally.

Exhibit C would be Ed Rendell and John Murtha, who in separate moments of on-the-record candor they would come to regret, pointing out that there are plenty of people in Pennsylvania who just cannot bring themselves to pull the lever for a black man – no matter what they tell pollsters.

These people are ruining things for the rest of us white people who are ready to move on. Sure, they have their reasons, chimerical though they may be: He’s a Muslim. He’s a terrorist. He’s a Muslim terrorist. He’s going to fire all the white people and give their jobs to blacks.

But those are just the little white lies these people allow themselves to be told, a self-induced cognitive dissonance that lets them avoid saying the unsayable: I cannot pull the lever for a black man.

Hey, some people just aren’t ready yet, even the governor said so. Just like some people aren’t ready yet for computers or setting the clock on the VCR.

Or, to hear Murtha tell it, some people – specifically some people in Western Pennsylvania – will never be ready. But the fact is, if you did a statewide head count of racists, you’d find just as many in eastern Pennsylvania as you would in the western part of the state.

That’s why this ban on white people voting I’m proposing has got to be statewide. And I’m sorry to say, it’s going to have to include all white people, even those who would vote for Obama, because you can’t just let some white people vote. That would be unfair.

By this point, you either think I am joking or are calling me an elitist. I assure you I am neither. OK, maybe a little of both. But it wasn’t always like this. I come from the Coal Belt, from that Alabamian hinterland between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, as per James Carville’s famous formulation.

I am, in fact, just two generations out of the coal mines that blackened the lungs of my grandfather, leaving him disabled, despondent and, finally, dead at the ripe old age of 54.

So, understand that I am saying all this for the good of the country and, in fact, for the good of those hard-working white people that Hillary used to pander to.

I know those people, I come from them. They are not some shameful abstract demographic to be brushed under the rug of euphemism by Wolf Blitzer and his ilk.

I have broken kielbasa with those people. I went to school with their children. I have gone to Sunday Mass with a deer-hunter hangover with those people. They are bitter with good reason, and they are armed because they are scared. They mean well, but they are easily spooked.

I fear for what is to become of them after the campaigns leave town for the last time, and Scranton and Allentown and Carlisle go back to being the long dark chicken dance of the national soul they were before the media showed up.

Yet the Left is always trying to claim it is Conservatives who foster racist tendicies and want to keep the racial divide in America alive.

Michelle Malkin has the storyalong with links to the audio of Senator Obama on a Chicago Public radio program back in 2001 talking not only about redistribution of wealth, but also how we must “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution”. Here is the transcript of the Chicago Public radio show:

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

Makes you wonder who else might find their way back out from underneath the bus?

In case you forgot, here is what Clark said that got him sent packing to begin with:

“In the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk,” Clark said “It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war.

“He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world, but he hasn’t held executive responsibility,” Clark said. “That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron.”

It is being reported that Congress is starting to complain that the bailout bill they approved is no longer what is being done as is being 000reported on FoxNews here. Many in the blogs (not to mention many a constitute) warned Congress that this would happen, but we were all told we did not know what we were talking about and that this was necessary to help the economy.

Well it looks like things have changed. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that voted down the first bill now realize that some of their colleagues in Congress and the Bush Administration has changed what the original bail out was about into a huge monster (which is what myself and many, many others in the blogs warned would happen).

It started out to help homeowners stay in their homes, then it was lets by stakes in banks so that we can unfreeze the credit market (although banks have said they will use the money to buy other banks instead), now it is let’s buy into the insurance companies. The only question is what is next?

I contacted my Congressman (Congressman Baird WA-3CD) about this issue and here is his response:

As you may know, through the program, the federal government will buy troubled assets. It is quite possible, and even likely, that the value of these assets will go up over the next few years and that the federal government will be able to sell them at a profit. If this occurs, the federal government will make money off of this deal. (ed – I told him the government has never been any good at making money only printing it so I doubt this will happen) However, there is a chance that this will not happen. That is when my “recoupment clause” would kick in. Under this clause, a fee will be imposed on the financial services industry and that fee will remain in place until the taxpayers recoup the loss. This provision ensures that, at the end of the day, the taxpayer will not be forced to bear any cost associated with the program.

So Congressman Baird, do you still believe that this will help people stay in their homes?

Congressman Baird also had this to say:

I am pleased that the bill also provides for strong oversight. As you may know, the original proposal laid out by the Administration did not provide for any oversight or review of the Department of Treasury’s actions under this program.

Yet here is what Mr. Neel Kashkari (pronounced cash carry by the way) had to say about the safeguards:

Neel Kashkari, head of the Treasury’s financial stability program, told Dodd’s committee this past week that there are few strings attached to the capital-infusion program because too many rules would discourage financial institutions from participating.

Like I told Congressman Baird in my letter to him that oversight without any ability to actually enforce means nothing at all. I wonder if the Congressman sees the truth in that now?

It seems to me that Congress passed yet another bad bill in an election year under the mantra of “we must do something” to help provide them political cover in November and ultimately it will be the taxpayers who get stuck with this $700 billion tab.

In the 7th Congressional District in Washington State there is a race going on in which the two candidates are as different as night and day. On one side you have the incumbent Jim McDermott, who has been found in violation of a persons right to privacy, had a trip to Iraq prior to the war funded by Saddam’s Intelligence Service, has made derogatory comments about our brave men and women and who believes that the government knows how to spend your money better than you do. On the other side you have Steve Beren. A man of integrity, who supports our troops, who believes in putting our country and the American people before political showmanship, who understands and lives fiscal Conservatism and believes in all his heart that in America your dreams for a better future can become a reality if you are willing to work for it.

This is a no brainer here. I think it is obvious that Steve Beren is a man who has a vision, much like Reagan’s, of our country as the great nation it is. He is a man who believes in the American people and trusts that they can make better decisions with their own money and get more bang for their buck that way too. He does not believe in the Democrats plan regarding eliminating the tax exempt of 401k’s or creating another form of Social Security. Steve Beren is man who understands that America has enemies in this world and would not look at cutting our military spending by 25% like the Democrat party has vowed to do. Steve Beren knows that to create jobs you must cut taxes as this puts more money in everyone’s pockets which is the basic fundamental or Reagan’s proven trickle down economics. He understands if you raise taxes it leads to less jobs which in turn creates what I like to call “trickle down unemployment”.

These are just some of the reasons that Steve Beren is the only choice for Congress in the 7th CD. To vote for McDermott is to vote for the Socialism of America and that I assure you is something our Founding Fathers never intended.

FoxNews Business is reporting that existing home sales have risen 5.5% for the month of September. So what happened to the supposed not being able to get mortgages because of the Wall Street Meltdown? Seems to me like it was hyped so that the government (yes both parties) could pass these massive bailouts that are slowly but surely leading us down the path to Socialism.